Memorable moment

Another memorable moment

The Twin Dilemma was the seventh and final serial of season 21 of Doctor Who. It was the first full story to feature Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, uniquely being the final story of the season. It was also the last story to feature half-hour episodes until Season 23, and the first episode since 1966's The Power of the Daleks to feature a new Doctor's full debut partway through a season (rather than at the start).

The debut serial of the Sixth Doctor introduced a new and more colourful rendition of the starfield-themed title sequence by Sid Sutton, which featured the Sixth's Doctor's face appearing in a flash of rainbow streaks and changing from a smile to a large grin (the first time a Doctor's face was shown to change facial expressions during the title sequence), as well as a slightly redesigned version of the show's neon tube-stylised logo, now more curved in an upward arc and with the addition of blue, indigo and purple highlights. Both the new title sequence and logo remained in use to the end of Season 23.

This story has received an especially bad track record for criticism, a complete contrary to the reception of the previous serial. Three polls in 1998, 2009, and 2014 voted it the worst Doctor Who television story ever. (DWM 265, DWM 413, DWM 474) The poll in 2003 used a different voting system and The Twin Dilemma was not among the twenty-five stories which received no votes, placing it higher than last place. (DWMSE 6)

Contents

A race of giant Gastropods has taken over the planetJaconda. Their leader, Mestor, now intends to cause an enormous explosion in order to spread his people's eggs throughout the galaxy, and he kidnaps juvenile twin geniuses from Earth to work out the necessary mathematical equations. Space fighters led by Lieutenant Hugo Lang are dispatched to get the twins back, but they come under attack and Lang is the sole survivor when his ship crashes on the asteroid Titan III.

A newly regenerated Doctor and Peri become involved and help Jaconda's elderly former ruler Professor Edgeworth, who is really a Time Lord named Azmael, to defeat Mestor and free the planet's bird-like indigenous people from the gastropods' reign of terror. Azmael, however, sacrifices his life in the process.

After his regeneration following the events on Androzani Major and Minor (TV: The Caves of Androzani), the new Doctor starts behaving erratically. Peri is still shocked by the Doctor's change and has him look at his reflection in her compact mirror. The Doctor is happy with his new features, and, claiming not to be happy with his last incarnation, decides that he must change out of his predecessor's clothing and find a new outfit fitting his new persona. He goes to the wardrobe and starts looking for a new outfit, finding a glaring, mismatched, brightly coloured coat, to which he immediately takes a shine to. Peri tells him that he could not possibly go outside wearing such an awful garb, to which the Doctor takes offence.

Two twins, Romulus and Remus Sylvest, receive a visitation from a mysterious old man called Professor Edgeworth. They question how he managed to get inside their house. He tells them he will return when their father is there, then proceeds to take control of their minds. The trio disappear. They arrive on a spacecraft in deep space. Edgeworth then communicates with his superior, a slug-like creature called Mestor, who instructs Edgeworth to take the twins to Titan III.

In the console room, the Doctor is working at the console after dressing in a terribly mismatched outfit. Peri enters in a new blue outfit similar to her old one and asks how it looks. The Doctor responds, "Yuck", to her as she had done to his choice in clothing. He then quotes a poem about a peri — a good and beautiful fairy in Persian mythology, but one which used to be evil. The Doctor then accuses Peri of being evil, and of being an alien spy, before rushing toward her and throttling her. He catches a sight of his own manic face in a mirror and collapses in a heap, releasing Peri. When she tells him that he tried to kill her, he initially denies he could be capable of such an act unless it is in self-defence. Seeing how terrified of him she is, he decides he must become a hermit on the desolate asteroid Titan III as his punishment until he is properly humiliated.

The twins' father contacts the authorities; he found Zanium in their room — a residue of their transmat and a sure sign of kidnap. LieutenantHugo Lang begins the pursuit and soon finds a suspicious ship previously reported missing. He tries to contact it, but it enters warp drive, something that class of ship is not designed to do.

On Titan III, as the Doctor contemplates a thousand years of solitude and Peri expresses her disapproval, they hear the crash landing. Examining the wreckage, they find the concussed body of Lang. They take him back to the TARDIS where he reveals his whole squadron has been destroyed. Believing the Doctor to be responsible, he points his gun at the Time Lord and threatens to kill him...

Peri pleads with Lang, telling him that the Doctor had, in fact, saved him, but he faints away. The Doctor is not keen to treat Lang, more concerned for his own life, but eventually agrees to Peri's persuasion.

Edgeworth argues with Romulus and Remus, making them do Mestor's work. He scolds them for setting up a distress signal, so they are not allowed to use electronic equipment to solve the equations they have been set. An image of Mestor appears and gives the twins a more blunt threat — work for him or have their minds destroyed.

On the TARDIS scanner, the Doctor and Peri see a building — something which has no place on an uninhabited asteroid. Leaving Lang behind, they find a tunnel which may lead to the building, but while exploring they are found by two aliens wielding guns. The Doctor cowers in fear and pleads with them not to shoot him. They are led off and are brought before Edgeworth. The Doctor claims to be a pilgrim to Titan III, but Noma, one of the aliens, says they are spies and should be shot. The Doctor suddenly recognises Edgeworth as an old friend - Azmael, master of Jaconda, whom he last saw during his fourth incarnation. When the Doctor sees Romulus and Remus and discovers it is Azmael who has abducted them, he is disgusted. Azmael teleports away with the twins and the aliens, leaving the Doctor and Peri locked in the building. The Doctor starts to break the lock's combination, but Peri discovers Noma has set the base to self-destruct. The Doctor improvises a solution to teleport them back to the TARDIS. Peri makes a successful return, but the Doctor has not appeared when she sees the base explode on the scanner...

A glimpse of the Doctor is seen appearing in the TARDIS; he was delayed returning because he was using Peri's watch to synchronise their arrival, but the watch had stopped. The Doctor is surprised at Peri's compassion when she thought he had died.

On Jaconda, Mestor is seen putting one of the bird-like Jacondans to death for the petty offence of stealing a few vegetables. Soon, the TARDIS arrives, but instead of the expected beautiful planet the Doctor is expecting, he, Peri and Lang find a desolate wasteland covered with giant Gastropod trails. The Doctor is reluctant to go to the palace, scared for his own life, but is persuaded to take Lang there in the TARDIS. In the palace corridors, they see murals depicting Jaconda's history, depicting the slugs of myth - but it appears that they are now all too real. After avoiding some Gastropods, Lang gets stuck in their slime trail.

Azmael takes the twins to his laboratory and shows them a storeroom full of Gastropod eggs. Mestor arrives and tries to persuade them that his aims are benevolent. Azmael begs him to stop reading his thoughts and stop Noma watching his every move. He agrees and leaves. Azmael explains to the twins that Mestor usurped him as leader of Jaconda and outlines a plan to draw two outlying planets into the same orbit as Jaconda. The twins' genius is required to stabilise those planets in their new orbit. The Doctor, leaving Peri and Lang behind, finds Azmael's lab. In a manic fit of pique, he attacks Azmael but is restrained by a Jacondan and the twins. The Doctor apologises to Azmael but demands to know what is going on.

Meanwhile, Peri is captured by Jacondan guards and brought before Mestor. When Lang escapes to Azmael's lab and informs them what has happened, the Doctor finally shows compassion for her when he thinks she might die...

Mestor refrains from killing Peri immediately, finding her appearance pleasing. Jacondan guards arrive in Azmael's lab and seize the Doctor. The Doctor tells Mestor that he ought to allow him to assist with the dangerous operation of moving the planets, as a single mistake could blow a hole in that corner of the universe. Back in the laboratory, Azmael informs the Doctor the details of the plan to bring the planets into the same orbit — they will be placed in different time zones using time travel technology that Mestor stole from Azmael. The Doctor realises that, as the other planets are smaller than Jaconda, bringing them closer to Jaconda's sun will lead to catastrophe. The Doctor enters the egg storeroom and is disturbed that they have no nutritional mucus. He tries to cut one open with a laser cutter; the shell is impenetrable, but the egg reacts slightly to the heat. The Doctor realises they have been designed to withstand the heat of an exploding sun — the explosion of the Jacondan sun will scatter the eggs throughout the universe. When they hatch, the Gastropods will conquer the universe.

The one remaining Jacondan in the lab collapses dead, his mind burnt out. Mestor had been using him as a monitor and knows the full details of what has been discussed. Peri, Lang and the twins return to the TARDIS, whilst the Doctor and Azmael go to confront Mestor. When Mestor refuses to abandon his plans, the Doctor hurls a vial of acid taken from the lab at him, but a force field protects Mestor from any harm. Mestor threatens to possess the Doctor's mind and body and demonstrates by taking control of Azmael's body. Azmael tells the Doctor to destroy Mestor's body before he can return to it, which he does with a second vial. Then Azmael, in his last regeneration, forces himself to regenerate — killing himself — and in doing so destroys Mestor. Dying, Azmael says he has no regrets and that one of his fondest memories was a time spent with the Doctor by the fountain.

The Doctor and Peri return to the TARDIS. Lang has no family back on Earth and decides to stay behind on Jaconda to assist with their rebuilding. When Peri tells the Doctor off for being rude, he reminds her that he is an alien, with alien sensibilities: "I am the Doctor, whether you like it or not!"

To defend himself from the criticism about his new outfit, the Sixth Doctor reminds Peri Brown that Beau Brummell was also criticised because of his look. According to the companion, Brummell had "taste, a feeling for style", unlike the Doctor. (cfr. TV: The Sensorites)

This story had working titles of A Stitch In Time and A Switch In Time.

New opening and closing title sequences make their debut, which include a more colourful version than the previous one, incorporating Colin Baker's face rather than Peter Davison's designed by Sid Sutton and Terry Handley. It used two different photos of the Doctor's face and featured the additions of numerous multicolour effects, such as a blueish-purple tunnel of spangle-like lights and red & green stars flying in to reveal the image of the Doctor. This sequence was mainly implemented to coincide with the new Doctor's multicolour outfit.

The cat badge worn by the Doctor in his lapel for this story was hand-made and painted by Suzie Trevor, and purchased for the programme from a specialist badge shop in central London.

Fabian was originally envisaged as a male character and the Jacondan Chamberlain as a female one.

The Doctor attempting to strangle Peri marks the first and to date only, time on television that the Doctor has attempted to kill a companion, if one doesn't count his destruction of Kamelion, considering that it was an android and that the act was an assisted suicide.

When in 2009, readers of Doctor Who Magazine voted on their favourite story, The Twin Dilemma came in at 200, making it their least favourite Doctor Who story. This dubious honour was achieved at about the same time the story was released to DVD in the UK, completing the DVD releases of the Sixth Doctor era. The previous story, The Caves of Androzani, was voted number 1, effectively bookending the charts.

While the date this story occurs is not stated in the story itself, dialogue in AUDIO: Daleks Among Us firmly places it in the year 2310.

The Edgeworth character was originally intended to be the First Doctor. (He wasn't. This is likely due to Saward's novelisation where he describes Azmael as "like Father Christmas without the beard"; a commonly quoted descriptor for the First Doctor by William Hartnell.)

Similarly, Azmael was at one point intended to be a returning K'anpo Rimpoche, regenerated into a new body. (This is nearer the truth, but not quite correct. Originally, Eric Saward asked Anthony Steven to add the hermit previously mentioned in The Time Monster as a character in this story. However, through Steven misunderstanding the request and/or Ian Levine pointing out that K'anpo had already appeared on-screen, the new character of Azmael instead ended up being added to the story.)

The uncredited person providing the service of wardrobe continuity makes an error in the first bit of episode one. After the Doctor regenerates, a smudge of mud disappeared from his sweater.

The director commits a sin of blocking. Because of where he has Gavin and Andrew Conrad sit in one scene, the actors must be awkwardly repositioned in another. When the twins are playing equations, they suddenly move about a metre apart so that they have room to turn around and face each other.

The silver computer terminal in the safe house on Titan III is prone to wobbling — most obviously when Peri spots the bomb and the Doctor walks away to have a look.

In part three, when the TARDIS arrives on the supposedly decimated Jaconda, grass and trees can be seen in the background.

When the Doctor makes his first attempt on Mestor's life, the "acid" leaves a large powder stain on the glass shield protecting Edwin Ridgefield. On top of that, it also knocks the shield back and causes it to start reflecting the studio lights.

Look 100 Years Younger - Colin Baker discusses the Doctor's choice of fashion over the years with comedian Amy Lame, ending with a digitally altered image of what the Sixth Doctor could have looked like had they followed Baker's original idea.

Easter Egg- On the first page of the Special Features menu, scroll down to the "Breakfast Time" option, then hit left to highlight a hidden Doctor Who logo. Press play to see silent film rushes from the location recording of the story.

Photo Gallery - Includes unreleased incidental music by Malcolm Clarke.

Contrary to common belief, season 10 kicked off in the last week of December 1972 — not in 1973, as would be expected. Season 10 actually began nine years after season 1 started. In fact, The Three Doctors began nine years to the week after The Daleks first aired.

For the purposes of this list, "Series 4" is considered to be the production series 4, which ran all the way from Time Crash to The End of Time.

The years seen in this section may seem decidedly "off". Remember, however, that this list only gives the first year in which an episode from a series was broadcast. David Tennant, unusual amongst other Doctors, began and ended on special episodes, not regular ones. Thus, his series actually begin in 2005, 2006 and 2007 — not 2006, 2007 and 2008 as is commonly thought.

For the purposes of this list, a "post-regeneration story" is one in which the after-effects of a regeneration is actually and initially depicted and the Time Lord fully settles into their new body. For this reason, Rose is not included below, even though it is commonly thought of as a "post-regeneration story". It doesn't actually include a clear scene of regeneration, and the preponderance of stories in other media confirm that the Ninth Doctor has not immediately regenerated prior to the story.

Regeneration is usually considered a biologic process exclusive to Time Lords and a few other species. However, some consider Regeneration to also be a "post-regeneration story", though neither describes anything close to a biological process.